


Anthracite

by kore_rising



Series: Shades of Gray [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-04
Updated: 2010-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 22:39:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kore_rising/pseuds/kore_rising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><span class="small">Rating: NC-17 for sex, gloves and <del>rock and roll</del>guns<br/>Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur<br/>Notes/Warnings: For <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/11005.html?thread=23002621#t23002621">this</a> prompt at<span class="ljuser ljuser-name_inception_kink"><a href="http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/"><b>inception_kink</b></a></span>:<span> Established relationship. Watching him BAMF in dreams in his sharp suit and black leather assassin gloves (think Cobb in Saito's dream, yes?)makes her incredibly wet. So she has him fingerfuck her while he's got the gloves on. </span></span></p><p><span class="small">This is a companion piece to <a href="http://kore-rising.livejournal.com/2173.html"><em>Graphite</em></a>, (and it's sort of prequel <a href="http://kore-rising.livejournal.com/6946.html"><em>Standing Male, Nude</em></a> ) but you don't have to read either for this to make any sense.<br/>The characters, setting and story of Inception are the property of Christopher Nolan and no cash is being made from this story.<br/>Once again, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to <span class="ljuser ljuser-name_saourise"><a href="http://saourise.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://saourise.livejournal.com/"><b>saourise</b></a></span>, who made the beautiful graphic which accompanies this story. Please, go and tell her how incredible she is.</span></p>
    </blockquote>





	Anthracite

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: NC-17 for sex, gloves and ~~rock and roll~~ guns  
> Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur  
> Notes/Warnings: For [this](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/11005.html?thread=23002621#t23002621) prompt at[](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/profile)[ **inception_kink**](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/) : Established relationship. Watching him BAMF in dreams in his sharp suit and black leather assassin gloves (think Cobb in Saito's dream, yes?)makes her incredibly wet. So she has him fingerfuck her while he's got the gloves on. 
> 
> This is a companion piece to [_Graphite_](http://kore-rising.livejournal.com/2173.html), (and it's sort of prequel [_Standing Male, Nude_](http://kore-rising.livejournal.com/6946.html) ) but you don't have to read either for this to make any sense.  
>  The characters, setting and story of Inception are the property of Christopher Nolan and no cash is being made from this story.  
> Once again, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to [](http://saourise.livejournal.com/profile)[**saourise**](http://saourise.livejournal.com/) , who made the beautiful graphic which accompanies this story. Please, go and tell her how incredible she is.

  


_  
I have ten little fingers and they all belong to me,  
I can make them do things-would you like to see?  
I can shut them up tight, I can open them wide,  
I can put them together, I can make them all hide.  
I can make them jump high,  
I can make them jump low.  
I can fold them up quietly and hold them just so._   
(Traditional British children's finger play and action verse)

  
When I first started dreaming for a living...

Now, there's a phrase-I can almost hear my mom saying it to Mrs. Rosenbaum and Mrs. Thompson over the fruit salad at a pot luck: "Ariadne? Well, she dreams for a living now. It's very lucrative and she's met the nicest young man, so well dressed and well spoken, not to mention obviously well educated. I think she might marry him, you know.." While they all twittered like starlings over my prospects.

But to be fair to Arthur, he charmed her like he charms everyone who isn't at the business end of his gun. One glimpse of those dimples and she fell hook, line and sinker. "Like mother, like daughter," he had said in that perfectly infuriating way of his once he had me alone in my old bedroom, then proceeded to all but break my old bed. Which my mom forgave him in a snap, never mind that he was ravishing her daughter on it when it happened. She simply gave her most a breezy laugh and trilled "Oh, I really should get you something newer, honey. Pass the juice?" 

Anyway.

When I first started dreaming for a living, before Arthur and I were together and he was nothing more than my teacher (possibly the first time I have ever wanted to indulge in a teacher/student fantasy, the whole  "What do I have to do to get extra credit and pass my course? I'll do anything you want. Anything..." Fondle tie, make big eyes, press hips into his, watch him stutter a bit then say "You have to pass a practical test. Kneel down/lift your skirt/bend over my desk/undo my fly." But I'm getting lost here.) He explained very carefully and meticulously to me the precise nature of how a somnacin dream works. That sensations, emotions as well as projections are filtered through the individual's previous memories. That when we feel something in a dream it's in part built out of our previous experiences as well as our expectations. In some cases it's as simple as remembering how it feels to be cold then extrapolating from the environment just how cold you expect to be. In others it's a more complex engagement.

"Like what?" I had asked. He coughed, blushed, looked at me and said quietly:"Imagine you're being kissed."

OK, I thought, trying not to gawp stupidly at his mouth, that I can do,.

"When you're kissed in a dream you build the experience out of all your memories of being kissed, all your fantasies of being kissed as well as any physical memories you have of the person kissing you. Do you understand?"  
"Yes, I...think so." We stood there for maybe ten seconds looking at each other, smiling slightly; the whole time I could feel myself hoping he would just kiss me so I could have a memory to build out of. I swear we were both leaning forward when Yusuf dropped a test tube and swore, making both of us jump about five feet in the air.

"Excellent. Excuse me." He grabbed his notebook and scurried away, casting me one last look over his shoulder as he went, leaving me to write the words _fucking glassware_ about a thousand times on a sheet of drafting paper before I was calm enough to get back to work.

Did I have a crush on Arthur? Yes. A huge one that seemed to simmer just below my skin the whole time we were working on Fischer. When I inadvertently discovered he had one on me too I seemed to spend an awful lot of my personal time imagining just what, just how we might be together. I'm not too proud to say I went through a couple of packs of batteries in that time, too scared to do anything real for fear we might upset the entire team dynamic or that I would have to admit I knew that he was thinking about me in a sexual way only to have him say "Sorry, I don't sleep with my co-workers. Find a nice boy your own age and get me out of your system."  There was one terrible night, which I wince to recall, about two weeks before we performed inception for the first time, Eames got me blubbering drunk on vodka then had to listen as I alternately wept and raged over "this guy who I really like but I'm not sure likes me enough to do anything." Poor man, not only did I tear stain his favourite jacket, get snot on his shirt and spill vodka on him, he then had to pour me into a cab and get me home, all the while smiling and saying: "For goodness sake, he likes you. He's just as scared as you are. Give him a chance, love."

I was never the kind of girl who spent her time mooning over guys. I've filled out one of those Cosmo quizzes approximately once in my life. I never was the woman who you would see, her mascara running down her cheeks as she sobbed into her cell phone on a corner of the Rue de Rivoli, bleating about how she couldn't do without some man or other. No, I was the smart chica with her mind firmly set on her goals. I didn't run after student ass, I studied. I never dated more than I worked, never partied more than I dated. By the time Cobb showed up I was supremely confident in my abilities and more than certain I was going to be one of the very best architects in the world by the time I was thirty five. A female Thomas Heatherwick, a second Zaha Hadid, the crème de la crème- and it showed. My strut was down, I swear. _Mind crime? Slightly illegal? Pah! Bring it on, baby. Hit me with your best shot._

And then Arthur came along and threw me into disarray as effectively as if I'd been thrown in a spin dryer.

I wanted to impress him so badly it almost hurt. I wanted him to be blown away by me, to fall at my feet and yet I also didn't. I wanted him to remain aware of just how uncertain and insecure I could be, because he was. I wanted him to keep pushing my boundaries yet always stay at the centre, ready to put out his hand and say "Enough. You've done enough. Come back to reality with me." All through his endless patience with me, my questions, my flights of fancy, he never wavered. His mind was like a razor, cutting out the crap and reaching the essence of everything. And for all that he was within, I could not resist the without either.

When we did finally get together...well, that's another story entirely. Suffice to say we came back to Paris and settled into the sort of blended together life I had always envied in other people. I studied, we worked, we did the kind of things couples get up to, the whole bit. We agreed pretty much immediately that work and relationship would be two separate things. I mean, how good would it look if I turned to Arthur mid briefing and said "Oh, you're _so clever_ my fluffy shmoopykins! I could just kiss you! Yes I could! Come here, my little lovebun!"? Can you see Cobb's face? He squint so hard his eyes would disappear. Plus Eames would probably bust a gut laughing.  
Work is for working, not making kissy face. Even if sometimes I might notice he needs me to rub his back after bending over his desk for four or five hours at at a time or he might leave me a tiny ballotin of chocolates tucked next to my drawing board. Contrary to popular belief, Arthur isn't stick in the mud and I am not some impulse control impaired child. He's just blessed with a sense of what's appropriate to the situation and I am more than conscious of how my actions might effect how we are perceived. Besides, my private life is just that. Private, in big capital letters with a bolt on the door. Sometimes it leaks out, but never quite so badly we end up with the reputation as mindcrime's very first full on nympho bunnies of lurve.

Well, most of the time. 

I suppose I should confess right about now that there are some things about Arthur that drive me completely mad. And when I say mad I mean 'turn me into a drooling lust crazed siren'. The suits for one thing. I mean, how could anyone resist a man as well dressed as that? The entire thing, from the handmade shoes to the coordinated ties is enough to make me want to take the whole thing off him again as slowly as possible. Most guys I'd met until then thought they were making an effort if they'd managed to shower and pull on a clean shirt, so the first time I saw him in that dark shirt, matching vest, pants and tie I swear I blew a fuse. Then when he was leaning over me, insisting I look at him, his hands all over my arm...Thank god I was so pissed off with Cobb at the time or I would have just grabbed him by that vest and messed up every last perfectly placed hair on his head while memorising every curve of his mouth.

The other thing is his hands. Arthur has surprisingly elegant hands, long fingered and squared palmed with such soft skin it's like being stroked by warm satin. When he catches my hand in his it sends a shock through me every time. _You're mine_ , I think with drunken happiness, _you're mine and I am yours_. He could be a concert pianist with those fingers, so dexterous and nimble he is with them. I've sat and watched him twirl pens, seen him fire guns and throw punches, felt him run them across me like I'm a treat he wants to savour in all it's complexity and I never fail to be astonished by how expressive they can be.

~*~

It happened on routine extraction.

Like I said, we normally never let our work personas slip. We've both got too much invested in our jobs to let them drop. We're both sufficiently self aware and self controlled to hold off  until we're alone, because let's face it, would you want to be caught mid tryst by your mark? Or by Cobb? Damn straight you wouldn't. I know Arthur would rather come to work dressed as the sugar plum fairy than have anyone but me see him mid nasty. He'd sooner wear a t shirt that says _**"I'm With Stupid (but he also answers to Eames)"**_ than have even a projection stumble over us in flagrante. Besides, as he was at pains to point out to me, sex in dreams is reconstruction. It's great, but it just leaves you wanting the real thing more.

Which isn't to say we'd never done it (never made love in zero gravity? Man, you're missing out. Even if you do have to bungee jump to do it and have Yusuf push you off the bridge since you're under at the time, having patiently explained to him it's a training exercise, it's still worth it.) It's just that the real thing is so reassuringly real, so full of the imprecision of the real world, that it overtakes anything you might care to dream. Well, normally.

The mark was the one Gershardt had asked us to extract from. Yes, the same Gershardt who Arthur and I had run out on, mid pitch, to have furious sex with each other in the suite down the hall. I'm sure I should feel worse about that situation, but for the life of me I can't. Watching Arthur's face as it dawned on him I had stockings on under my beautiful power suit was worth every penny I had shelled out on the entire outfit. I had no idea he would ever in a million years fake an emergency just so he could perform a close inspection of them. Not that I'm complaining, you understand, just pleasantly surprised. It almost makes up for the fact that had we misstepped it even slightly we would have blown our carefully won reputation out of the water in one single go, invoked Cobb's ire and lost a well playing client into the bargain. But we didn't, so we took a deep breath, wiped our brows and promised to be more careful next time.

The setting for the dream was an elaborate party in a mansion modelled on the mark's holiday villa in Tuscany. When I set out to design it started life as a shabby chic bolt hole then it grew into a beautiful Renaissance fantasy of frescoes, faded apricot plaster and delicate gold highlighted furniture. The garden was a deliberate maze of plane trees and box hedges, dotted with ponds and looping gravel paths, lit with sputtering torches and candle lanterns amongst the marbles gone grey with age. But the joy and centrepiece was the party room, the setting for an elaborate masque in which the mark would be lost amongst the gaiety while we neatly slipped out the information he had locked in his head. Although I was thorough enough by that point to add in the wings of bedrooms, the kitchens, wine cellar, the almost endless variety of rooms he might decide at any point to wander off and have a look at. You could never tell what a dreamer might take into their head to do at any point, Cobb once warned me. Better to be prepared for that than have to make it up on the fly.

The plan was relatively simple. I was the dreamer, since we discovered I could hold the feel of it better than anyone when we ran our test runs. Eames was to be his long lost love and keep him from straying too far out of sight. Arthur was running point for Cobb, who was going to do most of the actual work. In fact it all went pretty easily to begin with. We drugged the guy in his hotel bar, carted him upstairs to our suite, wired ourselves in and off we went.

It would be wrong to imagine that there isn't a part of me that doesn't love the fact that in dreams I can indulge myself a little. And this was a party. A proper, honest to goodness, dress up to the nines party of the kind they take photos of for _Paris Match_. And since I was the dreamer I had some control over how everyone appeared. Sure, how we project ourselves into dream space is in part mediated by our sense of ourselves, but that isn't to say the dreamer can't actively influence what goes on. You remember that neat little grey number? Arthur's idea. (You really don't want me to tell you what he put underneath it, suffice to say when I mentioned it he went an extremely pretty shade of pink. He has good taste, trust me.) So what I had in mind for everyone pretty much came through.

Cobb was resplendent in a pale stone suit, a dark blue shirt and dark brown shoes, as if he'd just carelessly motored over from Lucca after an opera. Eames was always harder for me to influence, but I still managed to pull him into a dark dinner jacket and white shirt, his natural dishabille perfectly offset by it's crisp lines.

And Arthur...how much was down to me is debatable, but for a joint effort it came off perfectly. His suit was black, the absolute hue that soaks up light like a sponge, narrow cut to his slim frame with just the right degree of ease. Under it his shirt was black, a weakness of mine harking back to our first meeting and that chocolate shade he was wearing, his tie was black and printed with a minute pattern of grey lines that swirled delicately into pairs of interlocked A's, twisting in neat spirals then repeating. Even his shoes were black, shiny as jet and perfect. 

He had looked down at the tie first and cocked an eyebrow at me, which I answered with a smiling shrug. "You look beautiful." He had smiled in return, holding his hand out to lead me into the melee so we could dance.

I will admit, I went a little to town on myself. The dress was long, full sleeved, dark emerald with a swooping neckline and beaded bodice straight out of a couture atelier. The skirt flared around my legs with sufficient drama for the party and, since this was a dream, my matching heels were not only comfortable but easy to walk in. I managed to tame my hair into one of those impossible to copy tumbling curl up dos that in real life always look like a haystack has landed on my head and gift myself with a pair of earrings that probably could have hung from the ceiling as chandeliers.

"Green is your colour." He whispered to me when we were safely in the formal embrace of a slow dance. "It makes your skin look like cream." His fingers traced labyrinths across my back as we moved and I was suddenly far too aware of how close to each other we were.

"You look pretty sharp yourself." I managed to shoot back. "Nice tie, by the way."  
"I thought you might appreciate it." His smile flashed dimples as he steered me across the floor.  
"How's Eames doing?" I leant my head on his chest so he could look around the room without too much suspicion.  
"He's with Berne, and they seem to be getting on like a house on fire. So I think he's probably got him where we need him."  
"And Cobb?" I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of expensive cloth and cologne.   
"At the back, watching Berne. It shouldn't take Eames too long to find out where he keeps his private papers."

We danced a full circuit of the room five or six times before Cobb tipped Arthur the nod. I felt him take a deep in breath and move his hands firmly to my waist, his body going from half relaxed to alert in a few seconds. "I don't want to be the party pooper, but we need to move, now." He whispered into my ear. I lifted my head and smiled as sweetly as any projection, raising my voice so I was audible. "Darling, if you wanted to go somewhere more private all you had to do was say."  
"The cellar. Dom's going in through the garden. We need to clear the exit that leads into the house." He whispered and kissed me carefully.    
"The garden would be charming." I replied clearly when he let my mouth go. "Shall we get some champagne first?"  
He nodded as I trailed one idle hand over his cheek, playing my best languid party girl to the hilt. He let me go, a shade reluctantly I thought, and I took his hand.

The cellar entrance had been carefully placed in the area normally devoted to the services of the house in reality, in the hope it would attract fewer projections to it. After all, how likely was Berne to spend his days prowling through his laundry, kitchen and boot room? We managed to stroll unobserved through the public rooms with their jewel bright frescoes and hordes of drinking, chatting and laughing projections. We even manage to saunter casually down the main staircase but it soon became clear that the lower levels were far more inhabited than was convenient. A couple of suited men lounged in front of the cellar door and from the kitchen we could quite clearly hear the sounds of food preparation. "Damn man. Trust us to get the one guy whose projections like to cook." Arthur pulled me back onto the stairs. "Is anyone coming down here?" I peered up and shook my head. "Keep watch." He said tightly, then he put his hand in his pants pocket and produced a pair of black leather gloves.

I don't often do transfixed. In fact, I might even go as far as to risk saying that it takes a lot to shut me the hell up. But watching him pull those gloves on, flexing his hands to settle the fabric around his fingers and straighten the cuffs made my mouth go dry. I could barely let myself look away as he reached into his jacket for his gun and carefully attached the silencer with calm precision. "Stay behind me." He ordered, "Ready?"

His look was so calm, so utterly focused on me that I felt myself start to heat under it. He looked, oh god, he looked like a badass motherfucker. My badass motherfucker, all in black, all lean sharp lines and fierce eyes ready to take out half the world on my behalf. My nipples pebbled with a shock of desire and I tried desperately not to let myself get aroused.

"Ariadne," he repeated in that deep voice that could always undo me, "Are you ready?" He was holding the gun high by his shoulders, the faint light making the leather glisten with soft shadows. I swallowed hard to make my mouth work, fighting the puddle of sensations I could feel between my legs. "Yes."

He gave me one of his perfect half smiles and repeated his earlier instruction. "Stay behind me until they're down." Then he turned, a blur of perfect long limbs unfolding in space, gun first, both hands braced around the handle, expression locked into grim determination.

I kept in the shadow of his body, as close as I could without getting in his way. The first shot popped directly behind the first guard's eyes, a neat bloody circle blooming in his forehead. Unfortunately this attracted the attention of the second, who leapt out of his relaxed pose, his gun appearing in his fist as Arthur advanced. Sadly it appeared Berne had little experience of firearms or he'd had the world's worst extractor try to teach him to defend himself. He fired wildly towards us, a shot glancing off the walls before he decided retreat was the better part of valour. "Oh no you fucking don't!" Arthur snarled to himself, his next shot hitting the fleeing projection in the back of the thigh, sending out a scream as he fell. Arthur all but ran across the floor between them, delivering one swift bullet to the back of the head and silencing the inhuman sound, only to reveal the sound of feet running towards us.

I've never thought of myself as a woman who had a thing for firearms or violence, but seeing him, every sense on high alert, adrenaline hitting my system like a shot of espresso, seeing the grace and strength pour through him, it all compounded inside me into a desperate need. I wanted all that strength and grace for myself. I wanted those leather clad hands on me, stroking me inside and out until I was a gibbering, convulsing mess. Nothing I could tell myself (not now, not here, concentrate, don't get hurt) could quell it enough to make it fade out.

"Where's Cobb?" I managed to gabble.  
"He went in through the garden. He should be coming up any minute." Arthur pushed me against the cellar door, his body in front of mine. "Call him, quickly." He urged, his attention divided between the stairwell and the corridor towards the kitchen. I cracked it open, keeping his back to mine and shouted into the dark beyond "Cobb?" The reply was faint.  
"Tell him to go out the way he came in. It's not safe up here now. Tell him to find Eames." Arthur's jaw was set, one hand reaching back to keep me completely behind him as he aimed and fired twice in rapid succession. "Don't come up here. Find Eames." I yelled.

"Shut the door. If we go down there we'll take them right to him." One gloved hand closed on mine. "Where's the best place for us to hide? We need to buy him some time."  
"The east wing is just down here and then up the servants stairs. If we go up to the third floor we can get through to the guest bedrooms. There's a concealed door." The fabric had warmed against his skin and smelt rich, an almost primal scent paired with the sweat of his exertion and the sharp tang of gun powder. It seemed to arrow straight to my clit, making it throb desperately. I was in a goddamned gunfight with my partner and all I could think of was pulling my skirt up and bringing myself off, letting all the moisture (that was seeping onto my thighs by now) slick my fingers while he watched me.

"Stay close to me." He threw one more glance behind us, then pushed me in front of him down the corridor. We ran, a spatter of bullets raining past us when we crossed the kitchen doorway. Arthur turned, his face set, pivoting neatly to swing me behind him and returning fire with skull shattering precision. "I got four of them. Go!" I started up the narrow stairs with him at my back,  only to face another dark suited man coming down towards us.

I heard the snap of him cocking the gun, saw him point it at my forehead but the sound of the shot came from deafeningly close to my ear. Arthur's breathing was furious and loud in the following silence, and in my head it sounded too much like it did when he was on top of me, my own voice urging him to go harder, faster, to give me... "Move." He snapped, one hand firm on my back as I pounded up the stair case, counting the landings as we went.

The concealed door was exactly as I'd placed it. I groped for the handle, my fingers sweating and shaky, before he reached round me and threw the latch back. We crowded through, a tangle of my skirt and his legs and he slammed it behind us.

"Where are we?"  
"The guest library. There's some bedrooms further down from here which are lying at the heart of the maze. They'd have to be right behind us to find us."  
"Can we cut through?"  
"If we're quick we won't need to." I tiptoed across the room and peered into the corridor outside. "Shit. One projection." I whispered.

"I'll see to that." He slid the door open quietly and crept noiselessly up behind the man who was watching the main stairs, a slink of dark fabric against the pale walls, every muscle pulled tight and to attention. The barrel of the silencer met the projection's skull and the bullet went in before he could react. Arthur caught the body as it fell and dragged it back to the library. "Let's go." He put one arm around my shoulders and we fled in a rapid walk, my mind undoing the labyrinth in all it's twists and turns until I reached the room I had put right in the heart of this limb. "Here." I swung the door back and pulled him inside behind me, turning the heavy key in the lock.  
   
I fell against the wood, my breathing unsteady and my heart doing a rapid double time.  
Arthur was prowling the room's perimeter, his sharp glance doubtless scanning for any weaknesses Berne's subconscious could exploit. But I, I only had eyes for him, as romantic novels love to dribble. What they would tend not to mention in our case was that the heroine was panting with need for the hero, her centre more liquid than a liqueur chocolate with her sticky heat spreading down her thighs, her skin crackling with arousal and certain parts of her demanding immediate attention.

"Arthur," even my voice sounded desperate. He turned to me, unscrewing the silencer with precise fingers that rolled it as nimbly as he could twist a pen or my nipple. "What is it?"  
"Arthur, " I tried again. He slid his gun away and now his hands were empty I could admire how perfectly the gloves moulded to them. He peered across the room, then started towards me. "Ariadne, what's wrong?" I felt my stomach flutter stupidly as he got within touching distance. "You need to stay calm."

"Arthur. I need..." He put his hands out and held my shoulders, half his leather covered fingers on my bare skin and suddenly everything spiked.  I reached up, grabbed his head and dragged his stunned face down to me. "I need you. Now." I growled.  And I kissed him, the wettest, messiest open mouthed kiss I had ever delivered in my life to that point. My tongue shoved into his mouth hard, my lips sealed over his as if I was devouring him and my hands clamped onto him so he couldn't move from me until I wanted. To give Arthur credit he only made one tiny noise of surprise as he jumped, his eyes huge as I attacked him, then they fluttered closed, his hands bit into my skin and he was answering me with all his intensity.

"How long do we have?" I demanded breathlessly when I released him. He grabbed at his watch.  
"About twenty four minutes here. Four minutes in reality. "  
"Cobb and Eames?"  
"The projections are looking for us, not them. They'll be safer if we stay here. Plus Eames will be able to calm Berne down enough to give Cobb cover. How safe are we?"  
"We're right in the middle of a three limb maze." I pulled him back to me again and latched on furiously.

"What do you want?" He gasped, pulling away from me hard and groaning as I nipped his neck.  
"Use your fingers." My voice sounded raspy. "Put your fingers inside me and fuck me with them." I demanded.

He shoved me back into the door and dropped to his knees. Both hands grabbed the hem of my skirt, there was a scream of ripping cloth and he tore it open to my waist. "No panties? Christ, Ariadne..." He grinned up at me. He stood, stuck one hand into his jacket pocket and produced a flick knife. It snapped open, it's blade glinting in the light as he brought it down against the neckline of my dress before I could protest. He pulled the fabric away from me as he slashed it to my navel in one sharp cut, beads flying off in all directions. He dropped the knife, yanking my ruined clothes apart and off my shoulders so only the sleeves were holding it on my body and I was on display for him. "No bra either?" He put his hands on my bare skin and I nearly yelped at the contact. The leather was cool and soft, slick against my bare stomach as he stroked downwards.   
"Didn't want to ruin the line." I bit out, my brain scrambling for the words as I got lost in the sensation.  
"I see." His half smile pulled up the corners of his lips as he took his hands off me, one hand moving to pull the glove off the other. 

 "No, no don't take them off." I grabbed his hand in mine, watching the shock flicker in his eyes. "Do it with your gloves on. Fuck me with them." I ordered, putting his palm down on at the apex of my spread thighs and moaning when I felt the warm hide cup me.  His thumb grazed across me to part my lips. "You're absolutely soaking." He hissed, spreading me open with his thumb and forefinger and teasing around my opening. "I've never felt you like this before." Two fingers pressed into me hard and I arched forward in response. "Is it the gloves? I have a pair at home just like these, you know." The other hand started working my right breast in time to the thrusts of the other. 

"Not just that." I writhed against his hand as his thumb began a steady metronome tick against my clit. He leant down so his forehead was against mine, his eyes pining mine as he whispered in a grating tone, the pump of his fingers not slowing.

"When we were by the cellar I could smell how turned on you were getting. You liked watching me, didn't you?" My eyes dropped shut, my mouth wide as air rushed in and out of my lungs. He moved so his mouth was so close to my ear I could feel his breath on me. "You liked watching me fight. You liked watching me protect you. I will always fight like that for you, Ariadne." His teeth nipped my ear lobe.

"Oh," I had to restrain the shriek I wanted to let out. "More, please."  
"Three?" Another digit joined it's brothers, twisting, filling and withdrawing as I ground my pelvis into his hand. Arthur leant into me, into my mouth and kept going, the pace increasing, his thumb working back and forth until I could hear the liquid noise of him moving in me. "You want to see me do this to you, don't you? You like it when I'm in control. Of my work. And of making you feel like this."  
"Yes," the admission tumbled out of me, "yes. I do."  
"Look down then." His fingers were pounding me by now. I tilted my head down and the sight of his black gloved hand frigging me senseless, damp with my arousal, filling me up, all shot through me and I came in a hot wet rush. I clamped down hard on his fingers, a pointless stream of   _ohyesArthurohpleaseArthurohpleaseArthur_ spooling out from my lips as I fell, his smile blurring across my vision as I did.

\---

"Oh god, that was good." I managed to say into his chest when my thoughts were finally glued back together again. My head had fallen forwards and I was slumped against him.

"Can you do something for me now?" He put a kiss on the crown of my head.  "We've got time." He added with amusement.

"Tell me what you want me to do." I lifted my head and nuzzled at his neck. "You be in control."  
His in breath was ragged but his hands were steady as he took my chin in his hands and lifted my head to look me in the eyes, his pupils so dilated his eyes were almost black. 

"Across the bed." He said quietly but with every ounce of his contained force . "On your hands and knees. Now."

My ruined dress slithered onto the floor as I pulled myself up, my legs still shaking from my orgasm. Naked save for my shoes I tottered over to the huge bed. "Face the mirror." Arthur ordered as he unbuckled his belt and started to  unbutton his fly. I caught sight of myself as I bent forward, my hair collapsed into dishevelled curls and my skin pink from exertion. Then I felt his hands fasten onto my hips, the heat of his naked skin pressing into my behind. "Knees apart." I slid my thighs open and two fingers entered me and quickly withdrew, his grip tightened and as suddenly as he had ever done Arthur thrust into me and I was filled with him, a breathy groan tearing out of me as my body opened to accept his cock.

"Good?"  
"Fan- _fucking_ -tastic." My voice sounded thick and husky. "Don't stop, don't you dare _fucking_ stop." I thrust back against him, tightening my Kegel muscles as I did so. "So hard," I panted, my brain taken over by some filthy porn incarnation of myself I had only barely met.  I looked back over my shoulder at him, his dark eyes black with lust and fixed on me. "You're so hard and you feel so _fucking_ good." I managed to snarl as he rammed in and out of me again. "Do I feel good? Am I wet enough for you?  Do I feel soft?"

"You know you are." He ground out, twisting his hips before he pulled back then pressed into me again, making my legs shake and my body contract. His hands left my hips, sliding up my ribs and palming my breasts. The leather was smooth and hot against me as he worked them, pulling each nipple into an aching point with a groan of satisfaction. I slammed back into him in response, and one hand left my chest, slid up my neck, across my jaw and settled over my mouth. "Open." He said, and I parted my lips. Two fingers slid into my mouth in response, stroking across my tongue. "Taste them." I closed my mouth around them, the sharp animal tang of the leather overlaid with a softer, more acid note as I sucked and lapped.

"Those are the fingers I used to make you come. Can you taste yourself?"   
"Uhhuhuh." My throat managed as my brain shut down with lust.  
"Do you like the way you taste on my fingers?"  
"Muhuh." I keened, nipping at the tips as he pulled them away again, past my lips with a faint pop and trailing them back down to my chest.

When he hold of my breasts again he leant forward, his clothed front rubbing wonderful friction onto my naked back as he kept up his pace, then he was picking me up, my body rising so I was on my knees in front of him, my head lolling back into his chest and my arms looping back to hook around his neck. "Look at us, Ariadne. Open your eyes and look." He rasped into my ear.

And there I was, reflected in the mirror he had ordered me in front of. Naked and pale, my body pulled tight as a bow string, my hair spilling over my shoulders, my lips wet and bruised and my eyes drowsily fixed on myself. The faint glitter of my earrings appeared through the mess of my curls and my green shoes peeked out either side of Arthur's legs. I looked like I had been thoroughly debauched and still wanted more. Black clad hands cupped both my breasts, a finger and thumb closing and relaxing on each nipple.  His arms bracketed my sides in their fine wool sleeves, the unruffled lines of his jacket, shirt and tie clear against my relaxed shoulders and head. From this angle he appeared exactly as he had when we had stood on the staircase, as immaculate as when we danced in the party room, as focused as when he shot Berne's projections. His face was hard, his stare boring into mine in the glass, every inch the point man ready to go into a fight. Except this wasn't a fight, this was two bodies falling towards release, reconstruction be damned.

"Look down." He thrust into me and pulled back, then again. I shifted my eyes from his, dared to see where we were joined and was rewarded with seeing myself engulf him as he sank in, then release him again coated in a shiny film of moisture. "Oh shit." I fell back again. "Oh god, that's so..."  
"Isn't it?" He panted. "I can see you taking all of me. Open your eyes. Watch me." He ordered in short bursts. "Watch us. Touch yourself. Come for me."

Faintly I heard Edith Piaf begin to croon: _Non, rien de rien,_

"Shit." He groaned, grabbing one of my hands and putting it over my clit. "Come, Ariadne, come." His thrusts sped up, his eyes ferocious as they watched me start to rub myself roughly.

 _Non, je ne regrette rien._

I was so noisy by then I didn't care if every projection in this place burst in through the door. "Please, Arthur, please just give it to me!" I begged at the top of my voice. "Harder, for god's sake!" He slammed into me, any pretence at finesse gone, his face hot and his teeth bared.

 _Ni le bien qu'on ma fait,_

 __"Oh, fuck Ariadne," He gasped, "Oh fuck, I'm..." He dropped his head forward, pushed into me so hard I nearly tipped forward again and made an animal noise somewhere between pain and pleasure.

 _Ni le mal, tout ca m'est bien egal!_

I pressed down hard on myself, three hard circles and then I was thrown back against him, my pussy squeezing tight as he throbbed inside me, the breath leaving my body in a shriek of his name as I shook inside my own delight, the world rushing away as surely as if that was my kick.

~*~

We were alone in the workshop at the end of a long working day.  

It had been three days since our dream based antics, and so far it seemed that no one had caught on. Eames muttered something about the dream shaking as he came up, like an earth quake or as if a tidal wave was about to strike, then stuck me with one of his famous eye twitches. "I got a bit overwrought just as we were coming back." I had replied smoothly. Not a complete lie, but hardly the whole truth. "Your heart rate did rise just before the timer hit zero." Yusuf mentioned from the background, adding almost apropos of nothing. "And so did Arthur's, now I think about it...."    
"We're out safe, that's all that matters. Did you get it?" Arthur smoothly changed the subject, turning to Cobb. He nodded calmly in reply and that, aside from some highly suspicious looks from Eames, was that. 

I was tidying my work table when Arthur snuck up behind me. "Hey." He put his hands on my waist and turned me round.  
"Hey." I smiled back. "What's up?"  
"I bought something for the apartment. Would you like to get out of here early and see it?"  
"What is it?"  
"A surprise." He quirked his eyebrows at me. "You have to wait and see."  
"In that case, I'm ready to go." I put my arms firmly around his shoulders. "Only if it's a new dishwasher I'm not going to be happy, is that clear?"  
He dropped a kiss on my upturned lips. "It's not a dishwasher or a fridge or anything like that, I promise. Come on."

\---

"So, where's the surprise then?" I asked impatiently as we got through our front door. "I'm on tenterhooks here, Arthur."  
"You were the kid who always wanted her Christmas presents at the crack of dawn, weren't you? Have you never heard of the joy of anticipation?" He took my jacket and patiently hung it in the closet while I danced on the spot with excitement.  
"I'm full of anticipation. Come on!"

He took my hand and calmly led me down the hall.  
"What is it? New carpet?"  
"No."  
"New couch?"  
"No." We reached the bedroom door and he flung it open.  
"New bed?" I followed him in. Everything looked the same.  
"No."  
"New linens? Did you make me leave early for new linens?" He calmly tucked his hands in his pockets.  
"Turn around."

On the wall facing us, facing the bed, was a huge ornately framed mirror. It was at least a metre square and easily reflected back the room in it's silvery depths.  
"Oh my..." My heart sped up, the memory of Berne's dream rushing through me.

"Do you like it?" I saw him wrap his arm around my waist and pull me flush to him.  
"It's..." He moved my hair from one side of my neck and started to paint tiny kisses up from my bared collar.  
"Hmm?"  
"Yes, I love it." I leant back into him, watching myself growing darker eyed with each passing second.  
"Good, I thought you might." He reached my earlobe and sucked it between his lips, making me gasp. "Would you like to try it out?" He met my eyes in the glass and grinned. I reached back and grabbed his tie, pulling him forward to kiss me.

"Can we take the day off tomorrow, do you suppose?"  
"Yes, I think so."  
"Good," I started to unbutton my shirt watching his eyes track my hands in the reflection, my smile dark with promises. "You're going to need it."

~*~

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  A/N's:  
> This story is a fic gift to [](http://dream-bigger20.livejournal.com/profile)[**dream_bigger20**](http://dream-bigger20.livejournal.com/) on the occasion of her birthday. Thank you for being such an all round awesome friend, critic and sounding board. This one is for you *hugs*.;[](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Heatherwick)  
>    
>  Thomas Heatherwick and [Zaha Hadid ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaha_Hadid)are both real people: Thomas Heatherwick is an artist/architect/designer famed for his unusual, organic structures and Zaha Hadid is an architect known for her sharp, visionary designs. I hope that neither of them are offended by my using their names, especially since I am a huge admirer of both.   
> For any one who's wondering- _in flagrante_ means 'while blazing' (sometimes lengthened to _in flagrante delicto_ , in a blazing offence) in Latin.
> 
> Berne's villa is modelled in part on the Palazzo Tucci and in part on the Palazzo Busdraghi hotels in Lucca, along with the Guggenheim Villa in Venice. It's setting is completely my own invention.   
>  _  
> Je ne regrette rien_ (I Regret Nothing) was written by Michel Vaucaire and Charles DuMont and performed by Edith Paif. I am not the copyright holder but I am not making any profit from it's use, so take that home and call it dinner.
> 
> Finally, for the curious: Anthracite is a kind of coal that appears both shiny and matte depending on it's state and it's very,very hard compared to normal coal. It's the colour I had in mind for the gloves; plus it's also the state between regular coal and graphite.


End file.
